


Paired Vignettes: Coming Home and Homecoming

by ocean gazer (ocean_gazer)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Post-Finale, Pre-Slash, Related Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-31
Updated: 2006-10-31
Packaged: 2019-10-15 20:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17535728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocean_gazer/pseuds/ocean%20gazer
Summary: The title says it all...





	1. Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another story in the "Dana comes back after leaving town with Mulder" category...

Dana Scully drummed her fingers against the cheap, cold, plastic armrest, opting to vent her restlessness in that way instead of pacing a circle around the airport waiting area. Mindful of the scores of other impatient people around her, she made the movement as soft and unobtrusive as possible. After four long and frustrating hours of her flight being delayed, she – and everyone around her –was feeling just a touch antsy. It didn’t really matter that they were now only ten minutes away from starting pre-boarding.

She forcibly moved her fingers away from the armrest, folding her hands primly in her lap, nobly resisting the urge to return the glare of the man in the faux-Hawaiian shirt sitting across from her. Four years ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice about staring him down, confronting his rudeness. Four years ago, she might even have asked him what – exactly – his problem was. Now, it just wasn’t worth the effort. He wasn’t worth it. 

She chuckled dryly to herself, not really caring that she probably looked like an idiot to the people around her. Then again, four years ago, her life had been a lot simpler. She and Mulder had still been working together legitimately. She’d had a house of her own and a nodding acquaintance with her neighbors. She’d had a good relationship with her family. Her life had been complicated in its own way by her job and the conspiracies she and Mulder kept stumbling on as they investigated the X-Files.

But it had been – what she thought of fondly now – a time of relative innocence, a time of relative simplicity. 

It was before Mulder’s first long-term disappearance, and before she had a child she had to give up for his own safety. It was before the world crumbled around her with her mom and brother pulling away, the FBI pursuing her as a potential traitor, and her all-but-forced decision to head into a desert exile with her former partner. It was before she gave up everything in the world to follow a quest for truth and for answers. A quest which wasn’t over for Mulder – would never be over for him – but one that she’d finally had to walk away from.

She sighed heavily, checking her watch. Six minutes to pre-boarding. She was surprised to feel just the slightest bit of anxiety at the thought. When she’d first heard from Doggett and Reyes, via a contorted and anonymous rout of text messages passed from person to person to person, that she and Mulder had finally been cleared by the FBI, she’d felt elation. A weight she hadn’t even known she was carrying had lifted. 

When she finally – finally! – managed to contact Monica directly, hearing that Skinner and Kersh had cleaned house and gotten rid of those who’d threatened her, threatened Mulder, she’d felt relief. It was like she finally could take a breath of fresh air. 

When it really, truly sank in that she could leave her desert exile and go back to the city she loved – and to the woman she’d grown to love – she’d felt stunned. After so many years of secrets, of keeping her guard up, she almost couldn’t cope with the possibility of such complete freedom.

It had taken several weeks for her to decide what to do.

It was an especially hard decision because she’d wanted Mulder to come back with her. Their lives had been so intertwined for so long that she couldn’t imagine not being around him. She’d hoped that he would be ready to go back, ready to find a new place in the FBI and continue his work. But he hadn’t been. He hadn’t even considered the option for more than a handful of seconds. He liked the excitement of being on the run, of being outside the system. She shouldn’t have been surprised by that, and she wasn’t, not really. One part of her had always known that the day would come when they’d hit the proverbial fork in the road and end up going in separate directions. 

It had hurt though, more than she’d expected. 

Not because she was still in love with him. They would always be close – years of having no one else to trust forged an unbreakable bond. But the thin flame of romance had pretty much flickered out after William’s birth – when Mulder held their son and yet chose to go into hiding and continue his search. When he decided anew that his quest was more important than anyone or anything else. She loved him, but realized at that point that they were better as friends, because their lives were on different paths and they wanted different things. 

And then, once he’d left, she’d found Monica.

Even now, sitting in the crowded airport, the mere thought brought a smile to her face. She’d felt an immediate connection to the other woman that was too strong to be denied. It was a bond that at first had scared her in its unfamiliarity, but soon had comforted her in its naturalness. She’d been through several levels of hell in the time she’d known Reyes, and the other woman had been there for her through thick and thin. Monica had never once put restrictions on her or tried to hold her back, even when restraint might have been the wisest course of action. Instead, she’d followed Scully into situations where even angels feared to tread, offering unwavering trust and support. 

Monica held her when she cried, picked her up when she fell, and almost unobtrusively stepped in to take care of William or help with household chores – never once asking for anything but friendship in return. 

Of course Dana had fallen for her. How could she not? 

She’d never before acted on her bisexual nature, though she’d been aware of it since high school. It had always just been so much easier to be with men, especially since her field of work left her surrounded by them. Until she’d fallen for Monica’s kindness, sensitivity, and sheer simple beauty, she’d never felt like she was missing anything. Now, having known the other woman, she couldn’t imagine being happy with anyone else.

She pushed out of the uncomfortable plastic seat, hefted her small carry-on bag, and walked through a maze of people to stand on the fringe of the queuing area. Not that it was her turn yet to board the aircraft – they’d just started the boarding for those traveling with children and those needing a little extra time. Still, with the prospect of a couple hours cooped up in a small seat, she relished the chance to stretch her legs for a minute.

At first she’d been hesitant about returning to her former home, even after realizing that Mulder’s quest was no longer her own, even after deciding that she’d played her part in uncovering the truth and concluding that all she wanted now was a little bit of peace. If it had been just about that, there would have been no hesitation, even given the uneasy state of affairs with her family. 

She’d been hesitant because she couldn’t quite tell how Monica felt about it. 

Before all hell had broken loose, before she actually left with Mulder, she’d had a long talk with her would-be lover. She’d explained that while she loved Monica and wanted nothing more than to explore a life with her, she couldn’t yet abandon her former partner. The other woman had assured her that she understood, had given her carte blanche to do whatever she needed to do, even as she’d also said that her feelings for Dana couldn’t make her hold off on living her own life, whatever that might lead to. 

She had not been entirely sure, when she finally had the freedom to call Reyes from her desert home, what the woman would say about her coming back. She’d steeled herself for the likely announcement that Monica had moved on emotionally in the fourteen months she’d been gone, that she’d found somebody who could jump into a relationship and give body, mind, and soul. 

It had come as a shock –albeit a pleasant one – when Monica had said simply, “You’re still the one I want to be with. I’d love it if you’d come home.” 

Given the woman’s non-pushy and follow-your-own-path nature, it had been the most demanding thing she’d said to Dana in the course of their friendship/quasi-relationship. And that simple semi-demand had warmed Scully more than she ever could have imagined.

Hearing the slurred drone of the overhead PA system, Dana looked down at her boarding pass and realized her row was being called. She patiently waited as two huge family groups literally elbowed in front of her, apparently under the impression that the airplane seats would somehow disappear if they didn’t get on board that very instant. 

It was a little weird to be going back, to think about seeing the city through new eyes, and to realize her house had long since been sold. It was also a bit odd to know she would essentially have to start over and completely rebuild her relationships with her family. The closeness they’d once shared had been torn in half by her giving William up for adoption without forewarning them, and then had ripped completely to shreds when she’d gone with Mulder. She’d insisted on stopping at a pay phone to call her mom and her brother, wanting to say good-bye, and when she told them she couldn’t be in touch and couldn’t tell them where she was going, she could sense the final estrangement in the silence on the other end of the phone. 

Still, she’d nervously called her mom once she’d decided to return, and while the conversation had been more than a little awkward, she’d heard the genuine love and relief in her mother’s voice. As she’d listened between the lines of the actual words, she’d come to the conclusion that Doggett and Reyes – in addition to smoothing things over with the Bureau – had also done a little mending of familial fences on her behalf. It sounded like the duo had explained to her family just what she’d been working towards, why it was important, and how serious the threats against her and her son had been. 

She hadn’t realized how weighed down she’d been by the fear of never again having any kind of relationship with her family. Now, though she knew all too well it would be a long road back to some semblance of normalcy, at least she knew it was possible. She owed John and Monica a huge debt of gratitude, one that she had no idea how she could possibly repay.

She moved slowly along with the line, fiddling with the strap of her carry-on bag so that it stopped digging into her shoulder, and handed her boarding pass to the ticket agent. Returning the man’s polite smile, she made her way on to the jetway, walking slowly so as not to run into the people in front of her. 

She’d had a long and hard journey to get to this particular place in her life. But it was worth it all for this moment. In two hours, she’d climb off the plane, make her way through the airport, and see Monica’s face. In two hours, she’d once again be with the woman she loved. 

They say home is where the heart is. They also say home is where people love you and care about you. 

By either measure, Dana Scully knew without a doubt that she was going home.


	2. Homecoming

Monica Reyes stood, one hand braced on the wall beside her bedroom window, staring out into the night sky. The moon was completely full, its luminescence bathing her in a wash of pale light as she held the curtains aside with her other hand. Though she didn’t turn her head to look at the clock sitting on the bedside table, she knew it was well after 3 A.M., knew by all rights she should be asleep. She was tired enough – physically and emotionally – that the bout of insomnia had caught her by surprise. Though she supposed it shouldn’t have come as such a shock to her. 

If anything, her last three nights of sleeplessness should have been completely predictable.

Not moving from her position, she turned her head and felt a smile curl her lips as she looked at her bed. Or, rather, looked at the woman lying in her bed, curled on her side, snuggled tightly under the blankets with only a hint of an auburn head peeking out. It still sometimes seemed like a dream that, three nights ago, Dana Scully had walked back into her life. 

The woman’s return hadn’t been nearly as abrupt as her departure more than a year before, but it had been relatively sudden, giving Monica only a couple of weeks to prepare. The biggest thing had been clearing the caseload at work so she could take some time off to spend with Dana as they both adjusted to this new reality. She was simply thankful that John – for whatever reason – was supportive of the two of them. The man had gone above and beyond the call of partnership to help her with their always crushing workload. 

But then there had been all the little things to take care of as well. There had been the thorough cleaning of the house and the clearing of space on shelves and in closets. There had been the need to buy the little necessities like extra shampoo and the certain kind of lotion she knew the other woman liked. And then, once Dana was actually here, there had been the two days of running around to get clothes and a computer and unfreeze bank accounts and deal with all the other assorted minutia that come with making any major move. Especially since Scully had left town with only the clothes on her back and the ID she had with her. 

She knew Dana was literally starting over from scratch. Again. 

The only saving grace that Monica could see was that she and John had been the ones who initially went into Dana’s house after her sudden departure with Mulder. They’d retrieved all her relevant financial records and papers, managed to get her bank assets frozen by saying she was on indefinite undercover assignment (with a few strings pulled by both Skinner and Kersh), and grabbed a few of the knick-knacks they knew to be precious to her. They’d been lucky to get those important things out before Mrs. Scully and Bill showed up in a major fit of pique to sell everything off at an estate sale, including the house. 

Between all the concrete details of getting things ready for Dana to return, and the psychological upheaval of her would-be-lover coming back to her, Monica shouldn’t have been at all surprised that she was emotionally too keyed up to relax and physically too tired to sleep.

She wrested her attention away from the sleeping woman and back to the soft glow outside the window. It was hard to believe it had only been three days since she’d picked the woman up at the airport, since she stood outside the perimeter of the security checkpoints and waited to see the familiar glint of red hair. When the line of arriving passengers had thinned out to a mere trickle, she’d felt a degree of panic, wondering if Dana had somehow changed so much in the time they’d been apart that she’d failed to recognize her. But then, Scully had walked into view and she’d felt such relief that she almost couldn’t speak. Oblivious to the people milling around them, she’d pulled the woman into a hard hug, never wanting to let go. 

But despite that, despite the time spent together the past few days, there were times when Monica was afraid it was all just a dream. As though if she looked away for a moment and looked back, there would be no one there. 

It wasn’t intuition, she knew that. It was fear, plain and simple. A fear that had dogged her for over a year now: of letting her friend go and never seeing her again. But it was more than just that simple fear; it was the deeper dread that once Dana left, she wouldn’t want to come back, wouldn’t want Monica any more. 

Despite the evidence to the contrary, she still couldn’t quite banish the thought. 

She snorted to herself. Ah, the irony if anyone knew that trust-your-senses-Reyes was so disconcerted by a fear that was clearly not real. But she’d lost a lot in her life, had learned the hard way that love wasn’t always forever and that happily-ever-after didn’t usually work out the way the fairy tales told it. Despite her innate desire to believe and to trust, she’d learned the hard way to guard her heart so it wouldn’t hurt so much when it was broken. 

Not, she mused as she let the curtains fall back into place, that anyone else would see her defenses or know that she was guarded. She was quite well aware that most people couldn’t see the protections, that to them, she looked like she was wide open and vulnerable. There were only a handful of people who knew the difference. Dana Scully was one of them.

Monica moved away from the window, not at all surprised to see the glow of moonlight visible even against the dark green fabric of the curtains. It was rare that the sky was so clear to be able to see the full moon so clearly, and she took it as a sign of sorts. A good omen. 

It wasn’t that she was a practicing Wiccan or a nature-based new age spiritualist, reading deep meaning into every turn of the tide or every turn of the earth. It was just that more than once in her life, good things had happened in conjunction with being able to see the full moon. She was open-minded enough to believe in the power of symbolism – and practical enough to know the symbols were not the same for everyone.

The feeling that she’d seen a good omen shook something loose within her and she padded softly back to the bed, sliding herself carefully under the covers next to her bedmate. She felt the subtle shifting beside her, but the deep, even breathing told her that Dana was still asleep. Struck by the power of the thought she’d just had, Monica curled up behind the other woman, draped her arm across her waist, and nestled her head between sharp shoulder blades. 

Normally, she would have worried about waking the woman, would have stifled her urge for contact so as to not disturb, not be a bother. But she needed to hold Dana, to have that touch to ground her in the here and now. And she’d suddenly realized that it was ok to do that, that the other woman was here, had chosen to come back and be with her. The redhead knew her quirks, understood her in a way no one had for years, and it was ok for Monica to finally take a deep breath, let her guard down, to put her needs in front for a change. 

She knew her native instinct, her natural reaction, was to focus on the needs of others, to worry more about them than about herself. Part of it was her empathic abilities, the way she felt the hurts and the emotions of others very deeply – sometimes even more deeply than the people in question did. Part of it was her own inner strength, that awareness that she could often handle more burdens than the people around her. And part of it – particularly when it came to those she loved – was that her caring led her to let them be free to make their own decisions, unencumbered by what she wanted. 

Pulling Dana minutely closer to her, feeling the sleepy way the woman snuggled back against her, she knew that the time had come for her to stop hiding what she needed and wanted from the relationship. She’d held her tongue when Scully left with Mulder, knowing that nothing she said would change the woman’s commitment to help her partner, to see the journey through with him after everything they’d been through. She’d waited and longed and hoped, but knew the choice was not hers, not then. 

But now … now Dana had come back, had made the choice to put herself on this path, had made a commitment in her own way by doing so. Monica’s version of the commitment would be to not hold herself back, not automatically defer to what she thought the other woman wanted and needed. She’d held herself aloof from love for so long, had kept her walls up. Now, it was time to let them come down, to really give herself completely to this relationship. 

There was no guarantee that it would last a lifetime. Nothing in life was ever certain and no path was ever set completely in stone. But if she didn’t jump in with both feet, if she didn’t share honestly what she needed and wanted, even if it wasn’t an option, she could all but guarantee that things wouldn’t last. Dana was too important to her to risk that. 

Monica pulled back a little as she felt the other woman shift and flip over so that the two of them were face to face. She wasn’t sure what exactly had prompted the move, and was a bit confused to find that Dana was awake … well, at least semi-awake. Sleep-fogged eyes blinked hard at her and she could read a question in them. 

Her voice was soft as she answered, “It’s okay. Just having a hard time sleeping.” 

She hadn’t really expected any kind of response, other than continued drowsy blinking and a subtle drifting back to sleep. So it caught her completely by surprise when she heard the faintest of whispers, the words strangely prescient. “I’m really here and this is real.” 

And then she felt Dana moving closer, felt the woman snuggling into the curves of her body, felt an arm drape around her in a warm embrace. Feeling tears welling in her eyes as she received the comfort she hadn’t really known she needed, she draped her arm around Dana in turn, letting herself be held, letting her needs be met. Monica took a deep breath, chasing away the tears, relaxing under the gentle albeit sleepy touch, the soothing caress of the woman’s hand on her back. 

This was what she’d craved, and this was what she needed. Now that she had it, she couldn’t imagine how she’d managed without it. 

Even at the thought, she smiled into the dark. She’d managed without it because it wasn’t an option before; it wasn’t something she had been able to ask for. Now, however, it was. Hearing the even breathing from beside her, she thought Dana had drifted back to sleep. So it surprised her when she heard the slow drawl of words, the fuzziness telling her that the other woman was just barely hanging on to wakefulness. 

“Whatever comes next, we’ll figure it out together. We’ll find a way to make it work for both of us. I love you, Monica.” 

The burn of tears was back and she simply buried her head against Dana’s neck, breathing in the smell of the woman’s skin. Strange how such few words could matter so much, could be so exactly what she needed to hear. All she could manage in response was a simple, “I love you too, Dana.” 

It wasn’t long after that when Monica felt the motion of the hand on her back stop, felt the limpness in the fingers that told her Dana was finally asleep. She simply held the woman tighter, aware of all she’d given up fourteen months ago, and aware of how grateful she was that they could have their second chance. And the comfort of the touch, of the words, began to calm her, to make her eyelids grow heavy. Her fears at bay, her subconscious needs met, her mind could finally stop spinning for a few moments, could allow her to fall asleep. She snuggled closer to the other woman, the warmth of the body next to her and the arms around her lulling her, relaxing her.

They say home is where the heart is. They also say home is where people love you and care about you. 

By either measure, Monica Reyes finally felt like her house had become a home.


End file.
